74 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
victim is precipitated down the sides of its cavern? Yet 
this is done by the ant-lion and another insect. Or, to 
omit the endless instances furnished by wasps, ants, the 
Termites, &c., what animals can be adduced which, like 
the hive-bee associating in societies, build regular cities 
composed of cells formed with geometrical precision, di- 
vided into dwellings adapted in capacity to different or- 
ders of the society, and storehouses for containing a sup- 
ply of provision? Even the erections of the beaver, and 
the pensile dwelling of the tailor-bird, must be referred 
to a less elaborate instinct than that which guides the 
procedures of these little insects—the complexness and 
yet perfection of whose operations, when contrasted with 
the insignificance of the architect, have at all times 
caused the reflecting observer to be lost in astonishment. 
It is, however, in the deviations of the instincts of in- 
sects and their accommodation to circumstances, that the 
exquisiteness of these faculties is most decidedly mani- 
fested. The instincts of the larger animals seem capa- 
ble of but slight modification. They are either exer- 
cised in their full extent or not at all. A bird, when its 
nest is pulled out of a bush, though it should be laid 
uninjured close by, never attempts to replace it in its 
situation; it contents itself with building another. But 
insects in similar contingencies often exhibit the most in- 
genious resources, their instincts surprisingly accom- 
modating themselves to the new circumstances in which 
they are placed, ina manner more wonderful and in- 
comprehensible than the existence of the faculties them- 
selves. Take a honey-comb, for instance. If every 
comb that bees fabricate were always made precisely 
alike—with the same general form, placed in the same 
